To reduce skill and labor in forming model for estimating the quality of material, and prevent the occurrence of estimation errors caused by the alienation between the structure of a model and the structure of an object.
The apparatus for estimating the quality of material of steel comprises a material storage means which accumulates material components track records, operations track records, and material track records for each product produced in the past; an input variables restriction means which restricts input variables having a significant impact on the quality of material according to rules by using material components information and operations information to be inputted; and a material estimation/calculation means which defines a distance function using the restricted input variables, calculates the distance between each date in the material storage means and an input value using the distance function, extracts data close to the input value based on the calculated distance, and calculates and outputs an estimate value of the quality of material from the extracted data.
OKAMURA ISAMU
Keisuke Matsuyama
Tsuyoshi Makino